“Yes, sir,” Darryl replied. “We have to set up camp and get ready. We’re not going any farther tonight. Come on.”
He approached the horse and reached up. Helping the old man get down from the saddle was going to be awkward, but it couldn’t be helped. Horace gave him an embarrassed smile and leaned forward. He slid out of the saddle and dropped right into Darryl’s arms. Darryl had braced himself for the weight, but the old man weighed a lot less than he’d expected. He felt like skin and bones.
Darryl set him down on the ground then retrieved his crutch from the travois.
“At least I only lost one of my prosthetics,” Horace said, using the crutch to leverage himself up off the ground. “I can still get around like this.”
Darryl just didn’t feel like chatting with him, so he didn’t bother to reply. Rooting through their remaining supplies, he located a couple of folded tarps, some nylon rope, a stack of blankets, and a small box with some tools—including fire-starting sticks and matches. He bundled this all up in a heap in his arms and carried them back to the others, as Horace came hobbling along behind him.
“Hey, kid.”
Horace’s voice choked with emotion. Darryl at him over his shoulder. He was tempted to say, “Can you save it until later? I’m barely keeping it together right now.” But it was just too rude.
“You’ve been through so much,” Horace said, “but you’ve really shown your mettle. I’m proud of you, kid.”
It touched him, though the feeling was muted by all of the anxiety and grief. Nevertheless, Darryl nodded and said, “Thanks, sir.”
Justine began making some truly unpleasant noises—yelling, snarling, cursing—as Tabitha, Marion, and Emma spoke to her in soothing tones.
“Hang in there, Justine,” Darryl said lamely. He felt compelled to offer some kind of comfort, but he didn’t know what to say. Shouldn’t he be at her side, holding her hand? What was he supposed to do in this situation?
“Hang in there, he says,” Justine replied, in a deep, growling voice that decimated his resolve. “Like I have a choice!”
Emma glanced at Darryl over her shoulder and gave him a disappointed shake of the head. He shuffled his feet awkwardly then decided to stay busy. First, he began setting up a small campfire, digging a groove in the middle of the road and filling it with kindling and small pieces of wood—though finding dry wood was tricky. Once the fire was going, he set a small pot beside it and filled it with water from one of their surviving water barrels. Then he used nylon ropes to drape tarps from tree to tree, creating a barrier across the road that blocked the cold wind.
As he was doing that, he noticed Horace tending to the small fire. It was evening now, and darkness was settling in, but the small fire produced a good amount of light inside the tarped area. Through it all, Justine’s grunting and groaning just went on and on. Tabitha, Marion, and Emma’s voices were like a constant chorus in the background, and Darryl felt his anxiety building. Just how long was this going to take? Was the baby ever going to come out?
Finally, with little else to do, he began pacing from tarp to tarp. Horace prepared the warm compresses, soaking rags in hot water and passing them to Tabitha.
“What’s wrong with this baby?” Justine cried, at one point. “Doesn’t he ever want to come out?”
Darryl turned away, arms crossed, feeling suddenly so overwhelmed that he could scarcely think.
“The baby is crowning right now,” Tabitha said. “One more big push, Justine. Come one, honey. You can do it!”
“You’re amazing,” Emma said. “You’re doing so great!”
Justine gave a throat-scratching cry, and then the women began to cheer. He heard Emma burst into tears, and he dared to turn around just in time to hear a little whimpering cry.
“Dear Lord,” Marion said, choked with emotion. “It’s a boy. Justine, Darryl, you have a baby boy!”
11
The emotion started somewhere deep in his chest and slowly welled up until it came out of his mouth in a kind of shuddering moan. He would have wiped away the endless tears, but he didn’t have any free hands. They’d swaddled the baby in one of the blankets and placed the little bundle in his arms. He was so small, Darryl scarcely felt the weight of him, but he saw that tiny face, scrunched up and whimpering, and he could scarcely believe it.
The baby had a little poof of black hair on top of his head and big cheeks—both reminded him of Justine. Darryl finally dabbed his tears on his sleeve so he could see his son clearly. It didn’t seem real. Behind him, he heard Justine breathing heavily, as Emma tended to her. They’d unrolled some blankets and made a pallet for her, and Emma was holding a warm compress to her forehead.
“You’re amazing, Sis,” Emma said. “You’re a beast. I’m so impressed right now.”
“Thanks,” Justine replied softly. “I feel like I was turned inside out. That was hell. Darryl, don’t break him, okay? I didn’t go through all of that pain for nothing.”
“I’ll never let anything bad happen to him,” Darryl replied, his voice choked with emotion.
“How does he look? My vision was a little blurry when I held him.”
Darryl was staring at that little scrunched-up face. “Perfect,” he said. “He’s perfect.”
It was full-on dark now. The only light came from the glowing embers of the fire and a couple of small oil lamps that they’d set on a box. It was strangely cozy inside the tarped area. In the background, he heard cows lowing in the night. Horace was out there, taking care of the animals, doing what he could to give Darryl time with his son.
At some point, I need to tell him how grateful I am, he thought. I was abrupt with him earlier.
Emma and Marion finally left Justine to rest and went to work preparing a meal. As for Darryl, he just stood there in the warm glow of the fire, holding his son and staring down at that incredible little face.
On the day I lost my father, I became a father. That thought made him start crying again, but he managed to do it silently this time. Finally, the baby began to whimper.
“Okay, you’d better give him back to me,” Justine said. “Dad’s not as cool as Mom, I guess.” She laughed at her own sarcasm, then grunted in discomfort.
The baby felt so fragile in his arms that Darryl was afraid to even bend down with him, so he slowly, carefully, lowered himself to his knees beside Justine’s pallet. In the warm light, it was easy to forget that she was basically just lying on the ground between trees. They’d propped her up a bit on a stack of folded blankets, but she adjusted herself a bit as he lowered the baby onto her chest.
“We need to give him a name,” she said, holding the crying newborn. “You have any ideas? Despite our earlier conversation, I don’t actually want to go with Pinecone or Spider.”
“Ooh, I want to help with names,” Emma said. She left the campfire, where she’d been helping boil something over the coals. She shuffled over and squatted down beside Darryl.
How can she be so chipper after everything that happened today? Darryl wondered. Maybe it was her way of coping with loss.
As for Darryl, he couldn’t even begin to think about a name. It was too much. He was just barely holding it together as it was. How could he be a father? How could he protect and care for this tiny, fragile life when they were surrounded by such hostile conditions? He felt woefully ill-prepared. Somehow, despite all of his efforts, his son had been born in the worst possible situation. With so much to worry about, he didn’t have any room in his brain for thinking about names.
“What do you think about John?” Justine said. “John Healy?”
“Too plain,” Emma replied.
“You think so?” Justine said. “Hey, Dad, what do you say? We need your input. John Healy?”
“I don’t…I’m not…” Darryl stood up, gripping his forehead in his hand. “Let’s me think about it for a little bit.”
“Okay, but don’t think about it too long,” Justine said. “We can’t just keep cal
ling him baby. That’s kind of weird.”
Darryl stepped back and turned, staring at nothing in particular. He saw one of the tarps rippling slightly in the breeze, heard the crackle of the material, and the distant sounds of the animals. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his back, and then his mother was there, pulling him into an embrace. She held him a moment, as he fought a furious battle with tears. He was exhausted from crying.
“Don’t worry,” she said, speaking softly into his ear, as Emma and Justine continued to talk about baby names. “Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see. That baby has a great father, a loving family, and he’s going to have a good life.”
“Thanks, Mom,” he replied. He received her words. She’d raised two kids of her own, after all. This was old hat to her. Still, his family had a somewhat tricky history with fathers. Would he be able to overcome some of the worst tendencies of Tuck and Greg?
I don’t even have my father here to give me advice, he thought. Somehow, I have to figure it out all by myself.
Suddenly, he just wanted to be alone for a while, to struggle with his own thoughts and feelings without family members feeling sorry for him. He gently extracted himself from his mother’s embrace, as he tried to find some excuse to get away. His gaze happened to fall on Emma’s backpack, which was propped against a tree. He saw the corners of some of her books poking out of the big pocket.
“Hey, Emma, isn’t there some kind of root that helps prevent infections after childbirth?” he asked. “You said something about it when we were back in the cave. Remind me.”
“Maybe you’re thinking of black cohosh root,” she said, a glint in her eye. She seemed especially pleased that he’d brought up something she’d talked about. “First Nations people sometimes brew a tea out of it. Actually, it would be good to gather some, since we don’t have antibiotics.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Darryl said. He went to the toolbox and bent down, opening the lid. He dug out a small flashlight and tested to make sure the battery was still good. “I think I’ll go look for some. You said it grows in the woods around these parts. I was going to hunt for it when we got to the cabin, but things didn’t work out that way.” He rose and headed for the tarp, catching his mother’s eye along the way. She gave him an encouraging nod. Yes, she could see his real purpose.
“You don’t even know what it looks like,” Emma said. “I’d better come with you.”
“No, you don’t need to do that,” he said, grabbing the edge of the tarp and pulling it aside. And then, even though he knew it was a ridiculous lie that no one would believe, he added, “I remember what black cohosh looks like from a picture in the book.”
Emma gave him a sad, sympathetic frown and came toward him. She reached out and laid her hand on his arm. “Hey, that’s not the way things work in this family, remember?”
“I seem to recall you going off by yourself to gather herbs earlier today,” he replied.
“That was different,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to emotionally isolate myself from my loved ones. We dropped that bad habit back in Glenvell, if you’ll recall.”
Darryl met his sister’s gaze, felt another twinge of grief, and looked away. Hadn’t Greg taught them anything? Yet here he was falling into the same old bad habits that had caused his family so much trouble. He sighed.
“You’re right, of course,” he said. “Why don’t you grab the book that has pictures of all of those plants.”
“Nope, it’s right here,” she said, tapping the side of her head. “I know you, Darryl Healy. You’ll just run off while I’m getting the book. Black cohosh has repeating sets of three leaflets and a sweet smell. My mind is an encyclopedia now. Let’s go.”
She swept her hands at him, motioning him out of the camp. Darryl was almost touched by her insistence in sticking with him. He turned and stepped past the tarp into the dark, moonlit night.
12
Darryl clicked on the flashlight and shone it down the path. He saw the cows spread out along the trail, most of them sleeping. The horses had been tied at the back of the caravan, their long lines wrapped around sturdy tree branches. As he swept the flashlight beam across the path, he spotted Horace sitting on a fallen log on one side of the trail, the crutch laid across his knees. He had the Remington rifle propped on the log within easy reach.
“Horace, they’re making dinner,” Darryl said. “Some kind of soup, I think. I didn’t look.”
Horace scratched at his scraggly beard and lifted his weary gaze. “I’ll head that way in a little bit,” he said. “I’m just sort of clearing my head out here beneath the stars. How’s the little one?”
“The baby is just fine,” Darryl said. “No complications or anything, as far as we can tell.”
“Well, congratulation, Dad,” Horace said. “When this kid grows up, you’ll have quite a story to tell him about the night he was born. Are you headed somewhere?”
Darryl gestured to the woods west of the trail. “We’re going to hunt for some herbs. We won’t be gone long.”
Horace nodded and picked up the Remington. “Take this with you. I doubt you’ll run into any trouble, but we do get the occasional bear, mountain lion, or coyote out here.”
Darryl approached and took the rifle from him. It had been his father’s rifle, and this fact didn’t escape him. He held it for a moment. He could feel Greg Healy in it, somehow, in the weight and shape of it. It almost felt like a holy relic. Nodding gravely, Darryl slung the strap over his shoulder.
“Thanks.”
“And this too,” Horace added, reaching down behind the log. He grabbed something and lifted it. “Found this in a box in the travois. It’s a good thing we didn’t lose it.”
Only when Darryl reached for it did he realize it was a pair of binoculars.
“You think this will be any use at night?” he said.
“It’s almost a full moon,” Horace noted, pointing at the cloudless sky overhead, where the sharp whiteness of a nearly full moon was resting just above the trees. “Anyway, you never know. You might want to get a lay of the land.”
Darryl put the strap of the binoculars around his neck. “Maybe you’re right. Thanks.”
Horace tipped him a little salute. “Don’t stay gone too long.”
As Darryl stepped off the trail into the woods, Emma moved up alongside him. He heard a click, and a second flashlight beam joined his, lighting up the woods before them brightly.
“I always carry a pocket knife and a flashlight,” his sister noted. “Always! Essential tools for almost any situation, right?” She held up her other hand and revealed a small plastic bag. “We can put the herbs in here. See, you didn’t even think about that. Were you just going to stuff them in your pockets?”
“I guess so. Honestly, I hadn’t gotten that far in my planning.”
“Well, this is another reason why you don’t go off alone. We have to cover the gaps in each other’s planning.”
He looked at his sister in the backwash of the light, and suddenly the features she shared with her father were more apparent than ever. Same jawline, same straight nose, similar small mouth. She seemed to be coping better with the day’s event than just about anyone else. Indeed, he was impressed with how focused she was on the task at hand.
I guess I could learn a thing or two from her, he thought.
Still, he mostly regretted that she’d come. He desperately wanted to be alone, to chew on his own thoughts without any threat of conversation. It was almost a primal need in him at the moment, and he had to fight not to express his discontent.
“We’ll probably need to get a little farther from the road,” Emma said. “Did you know some native peoples call black cohosh rattleweed?”
“Do they?” he said, struggling to feign interest.
“Oh, yeah, they used it for all kinds of things, like fevers and colds and pneumonia. It’s really versatile. I’m glad you made me think of it. We definitely need to keep a stash of it on hand.”
They picked their way along the clearest path, avoiding the dense underbrush and the tangles of desiccated vines that were still strewn between tree trunks in places. Patches of snow and ice remained here and there, and he slipped a few times, catching himself against trees. This was still a hostile landscape, and it took pains to remind him of that.
“We’ll make a tea out of it, I think,” Emma continued, her footsteps crunching along beside him. “I think they used to dry it first and use the powder, but we probably don’t have time for that. We can just steep the roots in hot water or something. I’ll figure it out.”
“I’m sure you will,” he replied.
He kept his flashlight beam aimed directly in front of him, but she was sweeping hers from side to side, pausing now and again when she spotted an interesting plant.
“There are just so many useful plants around us all the time,” Emma said. “People have no idea when they walk through nature that they are walking through a veritable apothecary.”
“Apothecary, eh?” he replied. Did she really expect to have a fun, friendly conversation after everything that had happened that day? Even the few words that he did manage to get out made him feel worse. “Isn’t that like a pharmacy?”
“Technically, an apothecary is a person who prepares medicine,” she explained. “I was sort of making a pun, because of how nature creates all of this natural medicine for us. Get it?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“There are plants to treat just about any malady,” Emma continued. “All you have to do is look around. Of course, some are poison, so if you don’t know what you’re looking for, it probably isn’t safe.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.
He glanced at her and saw that she was staring fixedly at him. He watched her visage collapse as she read the emotion on his face. The eager little half-grin evaporated, and her eyebrows dropped. She finally got the point and fell into a sullen silence. Darryl felt bad, but he was also grateful for it. They continued to hike through the woods, moving in a widening arc, back and forth, as Emma fixed her gaze on the ground before her.
EMP: Return of the Wild West Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 57
